I think I'm a part of the first generation of journalists to skip print media entirely, and I've learned a lot these last few years at Forbes. My work has appeared on TVOvermind, IGN, and most importantly, a segment on The Colbert Report at one point. Feel free to follow me on Twitter or on Facebook, write me on Facebook or just email at paultassi(at)gmail(dot)com. I'm also almost finished with my sci-fi novel series, The Earthborn Trilogy.

Did the Real Mass Effect 3 Ending Go Over Everyone's Heads?

Mass Effect 3 has been derided since its release as having an unsatisfying and spectacularly bad finale that has disappointed fans of the otherwise phenomenal series. But now a new conspiracy theory is circling the internet, and if proven true, could mean that this terrible ending is actually pretty incredible, and we were all just too blind to see it.

The “proof” comes in the form of a collection of internet postings and a new definitive “Loose Change” style video which aims to show how we’ve all missed the point. I’ll post it for you below, and though it clocks in at twenty minutes, if you’re a fan, it’s definitely a must watch.

I won’t summarize it in full (obvious spoilers ahoy), but the general idea is that in reality, the entire ending sequence is occurring in your character’s mind. The bad guys of the series, the Reapers, are attempting to “indoctrinate” Commander Shepard, a process they use to seduce powerful figures into helping their cause, and the final choice you make is either you accepting or resisting their influence.

The details are small at first, but they start to snowball, and by the end, the theory doesn’t sound so crazy anymore. It explains many aspects of the game that are otherwise out of place. Shepard’s visions of a lost child, the fact that he winds up with an injury he supposedly inflicted on another, the two second sequence that shows him stirring in earthbound rubble at the end. And a fact not mentioned in the video, that your last save in the game allows you replay the alleged dream sequence if you made the “wrong” choice from the exact moment reality supposedly ends.

And I did in fact make the “wrong” choice according to this, and I was disturbed when I realized that two of the three options, controlling the Reapers and combining organic and synthetic life, were also the aims of the indoctrinated Illusive Man and Saren respectively. Uh oh.

What is not made clear in this theory, or the video, is what the scenes mean AFTER the decision is made. As discussed before, they all more or less show variants of the same scene, giving little or unclear resolution to Shepard’s actions. This is the sequence that upset people the most, and the video explains it away as “hopeful visions,” but that’s not exactly satisfying either.

It is also entirely plausible that the ending is not metaphorical at all. That everything happened the way we thought it did and Bioware really did drop the ball. But further evidence against this straightforward view is that Bioware has not screwed up the story up until this point, and the “indoctrination theory” being true would prove they’re smarter than all of us.

But the fact is, true or not, the indoctrination theory is a win for Bioware. Even if it’s not what they intended, enough pieces are there where if they came out and said it was true, people would believe them. They now have a way out, as they can now appropriate the theory as something they planned all along, even if that wasn’t the case.

If it really was what they had in mind, it would be a master storytelling move viewed from one angle, as it’s a huge mind-bending twist for players that was too high concept for almost everyone who played. But when you stop and consider it, the decision to handle such a twist the way they did would remain creatively atrocious. I’ve recently speculated that the “sameness” of the endings is really a plot to sell more DLC, as if there were three different, complete endings, that wouldn’t be in the cards. The fact is, even if the last sequence is the indoctrination process, it’s still a gut punch to fans to cut out a true ending, and sell it later as DLC, which I now believe has been their intention all along.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.

Comments

People seem to think Bioware’s fanbase is the only people who bought this game. How wrong they are.

https://twitter.com/JessicaMerizan/status/304672159190630400

Making games for fans doesn’t make money. Catering to the masses makes money. Purpose of a business is to maximize profit.

Sounds like this statement they said clearly states, their fans are not the majority of the people who bought the game. They are not the majority of what makes Bioware profitable. Thus, they haven’t been listening to you. Made you an EC ending to silence you, after that, they cut you loose and worked on their own stuff (other DLC, not ending related, because you know, maybe they want to tell their own stories instead of trying to appease their fans).

Second, we as gamers are consumers. Not producers. We can provide suggestions, but we are not the authors of this game, regardless of what Bioware told people. That was just PR fluff, and people believed it.

Fan feedback is one thing, but shaping your games around fan feedback and essentially giving them fan control over how they make their games is a high road to disaster. Take the feedback with a grain of salt, but that’s it.

They didn’t need to explain it to some people, as they were smart enough to figure it out. Perhaps the issue here is Bioware’s fanbase, rather than the game itself.

After wasting a year on making DLC to clarify things, they still don’t understand it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWvZFVKxPpU&t=0m25s

Seriously though, we live in an “entertain me society” where people expect you to entertain them. A lot of people didn’t want to fill in the blanks and use logic, they expected Bioware to do it all for them:

So I take it if you go to a movie, that you expect the director to explain everything for you? If you find a particular scene confusing they have to sit there and make sure everyone in the theater knows what’s going on. Don’t think so.

“If you anger and insult a portion of your audience, then you didn’t really understand them.”

People were warned before hand, so if they advised you that the ending would make people mad, but they bought the game anyways, then you shouldn’t have bought the game and listened to their advice. Not their problem.

“Let Bioware seize upon this as a “what we intended to do all along!” thing.”

I cancelled my SWTOR account and its $15 to BioWare every month, because I don’t want to pay a company further for substandard products, and if this is how they treated me over Mass Effect, I can’t trust that similar failures won’t come from their other products.

This will also more than balance the cost of me buying the DLC ending if/when it comes out. I encourage others to do the same.

Very good article ! Thank you ! I agree with pretty much everything ! IF there’s been a “true” ending getting prepared or already done, it should have been on the disc. It’s a real shame to consider everybody has an internet access. (and to be able to pay to watch the 5 last minutes of a movie would be considered abusive, why not for a game?)